No, the DOJ didn’t cut a ‘good’ quid pro quo with Eric Adams
These are sad days for the rule of law in America. We have always determined guilt or innocence based on the law and the facts, especially in official corruption cases where the public interest in an honest government cannot be dismissed. That is, until U.S. v. Eric Adams.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty and elected a jury trial, until he saw another way out of the rat trap: switching positions on President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants and possibly switching political parties as well.
Sweet deal: You get invited to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting, Trump begins to spout that you have been “treated unfairly,” and before you know it, his newly appointed Justice Department moves to dismiss the criminal case “without prejudice,” meaning that it can be refiled in the future.
Why without prejudice? That one left lawyers and the judge scratching their heads. The only inference that can be drawn is that it keeps Adams under Trump’s thumb. If Adams switches positions again, or otherwise gets out of line, the case can be returned to the docket.
Almost everyone wants Adams to have that jury trial — at least everyone except Trump’s Justice Department and Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.
Dershowitz, an erstwhile Trump attorney, argued in an astonishing article last week that there is “nothing unusual, or wrong,” with the deal the Department of Justice offered Adams, namely, a dismissal without prejudice of his corruption indictment, in exchange for the mayor’s willingness to pile onto Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Prosecutors make deals all........
© The Hill
